Chapter 13 - Tell Me a Story
Chapter 13
Tell Me a Story
Sunday
Andi sat on the porch of her cabin and enjoyed the slow rain. Everywhere she traveled in the world she liked to watch the storms. A downpour always made the place seem small, as if the walls of the world were closing in.
She’d told Danny she had no home. Even when she was a kid traveling with her stepdad and her mother to military bases and embassies around the world, she’d searched for a place where she belonged.
Her mom told her that for some people home is a person, but Andi didn’t believe her. Andi had never had a man she couldn’t walk away from. Even when she went back to DC for a holiday, she was ready to fly out within a week.
She watched as Danny marched his way down the muddy trail toward town. Once it got dark, he wanted his pickup parked close in case they had to make a fast getaway.
The sheriff told the deputy that a few strangers had been asking around about a tall woman new to town. Then, before she could argue that it was probably a coincidence, he was walking back to the station. The man reminded her of a Clydesdale horse. Big, powerful.
They’d had nothing but a break-in with her car since she came to town. That could happen anywhere, to anyone. But one thing she’d learned about her deputy was he did his best.
Andi was sure he had cop blood in him. He lived, breathed, and thought like a cop. She’d learned that he wasn’t dumb and he moved faster than most men over six feet tall. He was always polite. And he had something else she rarely saw; he was good to the bone. Her stepfather was honorable and caring like that. She’d only known Danny a short time, but she trusted him like she trusted Pop.
Two men in different worlds but cut from the same cloth. Maybe there were hundreds, or millions. She never took the time to look. She was too busy seeing the bad ones.
She stood still for a while, listening to the rain. For once she just wanted to relax and breathe, but the silence ended as the pickup splashed down the dirt road. Danny stopped fifty feet from her cabin, as if he wanted to hide the old truck in the trees.
She smiled, remembering what Danny said yesterday while they were rattling around in the pickup. “No one but a fool would ever sell a running pickup. I’m not sure, but I figure my dad thinks it is the Eleventh Commandment.”
The words were pure Texan.
“Look,” he yelled as he jumped out of the cab and started splashing through mud puddles toward her. “I brought tacos for breakfast in the morning, and your mail. Sheriff called and said it was addressed to the station. Must be important ’cause it’s an overnight delivery.”
Danny kept talking as he marched toward her. “Pecos had me pick up a flyer about two missing teenagers from Lubbock. Rangers out of Austin said they want their pictures in every hotel, motel, and lodge in the state. Digger will put it up in the office. Probably runaways . . .”
Danny’s eyes finally met her stare and he stopped talking. She knew without saying a word that he wasn’t thinking of teenagers or the lodge manager at that moment.
Andi almost smiled. He had that look all men get now and then. The look that says, What did I say? She hadn’t said a word but he knew something was wrong.
She met him on the walk and faced him nose to nose. “I don’t get mail, ever. Even my mother doesn’t know what name I use most of the time. No family! No friends! No one ever mails me.”
Dan handed her a fat envelope. “It is addressed to Andi Delane, so it must be yours. Few know you are in town and I’m guessing you told even less people you were coming here.” He paused. “I figured it was probably from your Texas Ranger. Just sending info.” When she didn’t move, he added, “Maybe it’s court papers or something.”
“No. That’s not how I work. Thanks to the internet I keep up with headquarters and my folks by cell and now and then email.” She held the envelope out as if it smelled rotten.
He took one step toward her as a bullet flew through the rain and splintered a chip of wood off the doorframe between them. One bullet.
Peace shattered. One shot ripped all beauty from nature and seemed to echo like a thunderclap.
Both jumped through the door. Tacos flew to the rafters and fixings splattered down as Dan slammed the door and Andi pulled the weapon from her ankle holster. For a moment they were both trying to get in front of the other. Him to protect her and her to get a clear shot. In the rain it would be a blind shot, but she might get lucky and wing the shooter.
Suddenly the cabin was silent except for the rain tapping on the roof. She could hear Dan breathing. She felt the warmth of him inches away.
In a low breath she ordered, “Lay flat, Dan, and be ready to fire. I’ll take point.”
“No. I’m here to protect you.”
“No way. You’re a bigger target.”
For a blink he lifted his fist as if planning to knock her down. Then he said firmly, “You need to be low, safer, behind me. It’s my job to keep you alive.”
There it was again, she thought. The man who had to do what he thought was right.
She touched his arm. A gentle touch. She nodded once. “We do this together.” They both lowered their guns and she pointed at the door. “On three we charge,” she said as she lifted one finger.
Two fingers. Silently they raised their weapons.
All was quiet outside. Dan slowly opened the door an inch and she watched the windows behind them. Only the trees moved in the breeze as the rain slowed.
Nothing. All around them seemed to hush. Both held their breath.
They waited. Andi’s “three” didn’t come. They just listened.
The tap of a boot stepping on the far end of the porch almost sounded like a shot. The open door blocked the intruder’s view but both knew trouble was near.
A low voice came from the other side of the door. “Come out, Detective. We know who you are. You’re surrounded. Thanks to the mail, the deputy brought us right to you. We don’t want to kill you. Our boss just needs to chat. If you play along with us, we’ll leave the big deputy tied up with a leg wound.”
“No chance!” Dan’s answer came hard and fast. “I hate seeing my own blood. She is under the protection of the Honey Creek Sheriff’s Office. She’s going nowhere.”
A few of the shadows scoffed, making it easy for Andi to locate the intruders hiding behind the trees. Three, she guessed, or four maybe, besides the leader behind the open door. If they made a move to attack, at least three would be dead before the leader could get one shot fired.
From the corner of her eye Andi watched Dan pull out his cell, push three times and drop the phone back in his pocket as he yelled, “I don’t know who you think we are. I’m more than her guard. The lady is my girlfriend. I don’t know why you want to talk to her. She is just in town to see me. Anywhere she goes, I go, and she doesn’t look like she wants to go anywhere with you guys.
“All we are doing is turning in for a quiet night. And I’m in no mood to be bothered.”
Dan was drawing their attention, giving Andi time to search the land.
“Three to the right, two straight ahead,” she said.
He nodded once.
The shadow closest to the other side of the door hesitated. Dan didn’t give him time to think. He began firing questions. “You are making a big mistake. Did you see her? It’s dark. It’s raining. If she’s not the person you’re looking for and you kill me, they’ll never stop hunting you. If you drag her to your boss and she’s not the woman he wants, you’ll be dead.”
Andi stared at Dan. He just kept talking.
“I should tell you guys that we’re armed. The first head that pokes in the cabin won’t have a place to put his hat,” Danny said. “What is your boss gonna say when you bring in the wrong woman? He’ll probably pop your head off just to free your worthless brain. My boss, the sheriff, hates the paperwork. He’ll go nuts if this county has a murder or kidnapping. I saw him put three bullets in a man’s leg for shooting the neighbor’s dog. Sheriff Pecos made the dog shooter sign a statement saying it was a failed suicide before he’d drive the guy to the clinic. Folks say blood dripped all along the route because Pecos made the dog-shooter hang his leg out the window.”
Andi stared at the deputy and decided the man was crazier than the outlaws.
“Let’s kill him.” Another shadow ID’d himself to Andi as he yelled, “He’s lying!”
Danny laughed. “Oh, I forgot to tell you boys another fact. This lady has two brothers. If you hurt their little sister Hell will be better than where they lock you up.”
Several voices argued and the leader behind the door began to back off the porch.
Danny yelled as he moved toward the door. “Leave your weapons or the posse surrounding you will shoot if they see even the shadow of a gun.”
“What posse?” one silhouette to the left yelled.
No one moved for a moment, then somewhere in the night the rack of a shotgun sounded.
Andi smiled. Dan wasn’t bluffing.
A shot filled the night and seemed to echo off the trees.
“Hold your fire, men,” Dan ordered. “Give them three seconds. If there is one shot from the trees, open fire.” He raised his voice. “This is over. Drop your guns NOW. The only out is the river.”
The leader near the door yelled. “Run, men. We’re outnumbered.”
“You bet your ass you’re outnumbered!” a stranger near the back of the cabin yelled.
A shotgun fired, rattling the roof all the way to heaven. “Run for the river, boys, ’cause if you pass us, a dozen trained shots will pick you off before you reach the truck you hid in the weeds.”
The men dropped their rifles and ran to the river. Andi saw three sheriffs’ light bars flashing as they turned in near the lodge office.
She stepped out of the cabin, her weapon still drawn. She could feel Dan’s warmth behind her.
“It’s over, honey.” The deputy’s words brushed her cheek. “You’re secure.” Then he turned to the black of the trees and yelled, “About time you got here, Digger. All you had to do was walk over when I called in. Pecos had to drive. You’re getting old, man.”
“Shut up or I’ll accidentally shoot you.”
Digger walked up with his shotgun over his rounded shoulder. “You’re lucky I was listening when the code went through.”
“You’re always listening, old man.”
It took a moment to realize that the posse that saved them was one old man with the biggest shotgun she’d ever seen. Her ears were still ringing when another round hit the roof.
“Dan!” came the sheriff’s voice. “You two OK?”
“Yes, Sheriff, thanks to Digger.”
Pecos slapped the old soldier on the back. “Thanks, again.”
“Again?” Dan said under his breath to himself.
Pecos turned to his deputy. “We’ll round up these rats. Take her somewhere safe. Fast.”
Andi holstered her weapon and put both fists on her hips. “I do not need anyone to take care of me. I’m perfectly capable of taking . . .”
Danny lifted her over his shoulder and headed for his pickup in a run.
“Put me down. I’ll find . . .”
He didn’t slow.
She was so angry she would have shot him if she could have reached a weapon. “Deputy, I am going to kill you. Slow. Painful. No one, I mean no one ever handles me.”
“I know, Andi, but at least you’ll be alive.”
Dan ran toward his pickup with an outraged woman over his shoulder. She was calling him every bad word she could think of.
He couldn’t let her go. She was a fighter. If he set her down, she’d run after the men trying to kidnap her.
His job was to protect her even if she’d probably hate him the rest of her life. He wouldn’t let her get hurt. He’d stand between her and harm.
Somewhere between the kicks and hits to the head he figured something out. He cared about this woman who was trying to kill him.
He cared about her even after he swore he’d never care again.
If he couldn’t stop, Dan decided he’d join her in killing himself.